Author: Richard Jones

On Saturday the 16th of October 1876 The Exmouth Journal published the following article published the following story that highlighted the case of a poor man in London, and the way in which he – as was the […]

Reading some of the accounts of the poverty that was endemic in London in the closing years of the 19th century is a somber and, often, heart-rending experience. In previous articles, I have gone into a great deal […]

One of the problems that we have today when investigating the Jack the Ripper crimes, is that we are looking at the murders with the gift of hindsight. As the old saying goes, hindsight is a valuable gift, […]

Today I want to bring you the story of Elizabeth Williams, a real-life female Fagin, whose escapades could easily have come from the pages of a novel by Charles Dickens. The story of her foul deeds appeared in […]

Wow, the year is ten months old. where on earth did the months go? But do not worry, we’re still rolling out our Jack the Ripper Quizzes, and. although nine months of quizzes may have passed by, that […]

Realising that the press interest in the Jack the Ripper murders afforded the opportunity to reach a much wider audience, the Reverend Samuel Barnett, vicar of St Jude’s church on Commercial Street, sat down and penned a letter […]

Two people who were extremely involved in improving conditions in the district where the Jack the Ripper murders occurred were Samuel Barnett and his wife Henrietta. Over the next twenty years, they laboured to assist the poor residents […]

There can be a tendency to ignore the general history of Victorian London to focus almost exclusively on the history of the Jack the Ripper crimes. This is both a pity and a mistake. Historical events don’t (or […]

I recently added a new offering to my videos about the various Jack the Ripper documentaries, about one of the most intriguing suspects to have surfaced in recent years – James Maybrick. You can watch it on the […]

On Thursday the 15th of August, 1889, The Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette published the following response to the recent verdict of “Guilty” that had been returned against Florence Maybrick, for the murder of her husband, James Maybrick:- THE […]